I’ve met some amazing people at university so far. Most of them are in the queer space. Scratch that, they are all in the queer space. These are young adults who are going through a lot but for the most part seem to be excelling at what they do. I envy that. There was a time when I was like that.
My current medications, pregabalin and clonazepam, have been amazingly helpful on the social side of things. I have dealt with more people on a consistent basis than I have in the last 20 years of working in semi-retail. Worth noting that I’ve had to up the selfies so I can keep a track of changes under estrogen.
But there’s always a catch, isn’t there? There’s this damn trade off between sociability and being able to think, but it’s even worse because if I am in a social situation I can’t think anyway. My brain just does a whole bunch of other things instead of the work at hand.
So pregabalin and/or clonazepam (even though I haven’t got the doses ideal yet) are perfect. Clonazepam should only be used short term, but pregabalin can apparently be used long term with no issue. So what do I do? The way I see it there are three options.
1. Should I reduce the levels of pregabalin and cease clonazepam? This would likely result in me reverting and just abandoning study.
2. Should I carry on at full force and hope for the best even though my brain looks like Morgan’s scrambled eggs? (Visualise the most heat denatured protein you have ever witnessed).
3. Should I perhaps drop the loading down to 0.25 full time, at the very least to maintain access to the queer collective – which I am finding amazingly beneficial to be a part of.
4. Or… drop all courses. Reapply for UTS after I get all my other stuff in order.
The good thing this round is that my Jobseeker Payment from the Australian Government (Centrelink) no longer relies on 0.75 units of full-time study. With that untethered I have some more flexibility.
The only reason I can get these thoughts onto paper is because my medication is at the lowest levels in my system, which means my brain has minimal scrambling. Cognitive function will decline when I have my morning dose in a few hours.
And then the question has to be asked do I even want to do my course? Should I go for a more generalised science like I wanted to some 20 years ago. I loved biomedical research right up until they started trying to shove careers down my throat and threatened my future work with needing to be competitive with grants to guarantee another year of work.
That’s just not me. I really think I need to fight the government a little bit harder on the Disability Support Pension. While being a JobSeeker with the Disability Employment Service is amazing… DSP would give me more flexibility to do what I want.
After all, what is the point of living if you can’t do what you want to do? I never asked to be here and I’m happy to leave. But the government refuses to give me a way out. This is not peak humanity so I can only do the best I can. For now that seems to be dropping a bunch of subjects, keeping one and focusing on getting the DSP.
My next psychiatrist appointment should have a breakthrough or two with specialised therapy, but more on that in a later post. I just hope it works because I need to deal with this childhood trauma (read: sexual assault of a minor). It’s been hanging over my head for the past 30 years and it nearly drove me to kill myself. Sunnier days ahead perhaps.
In other news, I’ve downsized my study TV (and sold my PlayStation 5 to fund it), the wasp comb nest I’ve been watching has three overwintered native wasps, and I’ve started to stress eat, which combined with pregabalin has caused roughly a 5% weight increase
I’m also trying to detangle some of my life from the Apple ecosystem (I’m looking at you Siri) with a Beelink NUC running Ubuntu – so far so good.
We held a successful BBQ party with an appearance from Nick, I was very glad he could make it. Sadly Lilly had a viral infection but that’s OK!
Jon made it as a regular which was great too!
I guess I technically started UTS for the spring period and am still finding bees on the path out front of a (cold) morning. Spring will be here soon and I can’t wait. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Too bad my planning is out the window thanks to pregabalin. Oh well, what’s a girl to do! 🤷♀️
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